Move
Hack is open to individuals from all nationalities, making it a truly global hackathon.

Awards for the hackathon
include recognizing top 10 winners, with total prize of more than Rs. 2 crores.

Key Words: Move Hack, NITI Ayog

Dam Safety Bill

The Dam Safety Bill, 2018 aims to provide robust
legal and institutional framework under Central & State Governments for
safety of dams.

·The Bill envisages prevention and mitigation of dam failure related
disasters through proper surveillance, inspection, operation and maintenance of
all dams in the country.

·The Bill provides for constitution of a ‘National Committee on Dam
Safety (NCDS)’ to evolve dam safety policies and recommend necessary
regulations. NCDS is proposed to be chaired by Chairman, CWC.

·The Bill provides for establishment of ‘National Dam Safety Authority’
(NDSA) as a regulatory body to implement the policy, guidelines and standards
for dam safety in the country.

·The Bill also provides for constitution of ‘State Committee on Dam
Safety’ by the State Governments to ensure proper surveillance, inspection,
operation and maintenance of all specified dams in the State and to ensure
their safe functioning.

As per Dam Safety Bill 2018, every State has to
establish a State Dam Safety Organisation, manned by officers from the field of
dam safety preferably from the areas of dam-designs, hydro-mechanical
engineering, hydrology, geo-technical investigation, instrumentation and
dam-rehabilitation.

The NDSA is mandated in the Bill to:

i.maintain liaison with the State Dam
Safety Organisations and the owners of dams for standardisation of dam safety
related data and practices;

ii.provide the technical and managerial
assistance to the States and State Dam Safety Organisations;

iii.maintain a national level data-base
of all dams in the country and the records of major dam failures;

iv.examine the cause of any major
dam failure;

v.publish and update the standard
guidelines and check-lists for the routine inspection and detailed
investigations of dams and appurtenances;

vi.accord recognition or accreditations
to the organisations that can be entrusted with the works of investigation,
design or construction of new dams; and

vii.resolve issue between the State Dam Safety Organisation of states, or between
the State Dam Safety Organisation and the owner of a dam in that State.

In certain cases, such as where a dam is extended
over two or more States or dams of one State falling under the territory of
another State, the National Authority has to perform the role of State Dam
Safety Organization thereby eliminating potential causes for inter-state
conflicts.

Key Words: Dam Safety Bill 2018

NATIONAL

DISTRICT COURTS

The Supreme Court ordered that the Infrastructure at the
district courts to be revamped. The order came on a petition filed in 1989 by
the All India Judges Association for better facilities to help do their job

Separate washrooms for transgenders,
‘court managers’ with an MBA degree, Braille and colour-coded signage, crowd
management arrangements, crèche facility and even a front desk for litigants to
find their way, are some of the slew of improvements the Supreme Court wants
district courts across the country to have.

The court ordered the State Chief Secretaries to
constitute a committee of which the Secretary of the Department of Law should
be a member to formulate the development plan for courts. The committee would
invite an officer of the High Court, nominated by the Chief Justice of the
court.

Key Words: District Courts, Supreme Court, Judiciary

NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR
BACKWARD CLASSES

Why in News?

The LokSabha
unanimously passed the 123rd Constitutional Amendment Bill providing for a
National Commission for Backward Classes as a constitutional body.

·The Bill inserts Article
338 B in the Constitution, which provides for a Commission for the socially and
educationally backward classes with a Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and three
other members, all of whom shall be appointed by the President of India.

Key Words: NCBC, Backward classes

Economy

Fed pauses rate hike

Why
in News?

The U.S. Federal Reserve kept interest
rates unchanged but characterised the economy as strong, keeping the central
bank on track to increase borrowing costs in September.

The Fed said economic growth has been
rising strongly and the job market has continued to strengthen while inflation
has remained near the central bank’s 2% target since its last policy meeting in
June, when it raised rates.

People spending rises

Job gains have been strong, on average,
in recent months, and the unemployment rate has stayed low.

Household spending and business fixed
investment have grown strongly,” the Fed said following the conclusion of its
latest two-day policy meeting.

The Fed’s decision left its benchmark
overnight lending rate in a range of 1.75% to 2%. The central bank currently
expects another two rate rises by the end of the year.

Key Words
– U.S. Federal Reserve, policy rates.

TELANGANA

Facial Recognition System
(FRS)

The integration of the Facial Recognition System (FRS) with TSCOP is another
significant development for the TelanganaPolice.It will aid in prevention of crime and
identification of criminals across the State in real time.

FRS allows the investigation officers to identify
potential offenders by comparing their face (live) with lakhs of digital
photographs that are stored in Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems
(CCTNS) central database including offenders, wanted persons, missing persons
and also photographs of arrested offenders published in the media.

·When the
person’s face or a photograph is uploaded into the system, it will be compared
with photos in the central database and the matches of photographs will be
ranked in descending order. Further, the investigating officer will carry out
manual comparison of matched photographs and initiate appropriate action after
confirmation using other information.

·Photographs
of persons that do not match with the central database will automatically be
discarded immediately and shall not be stored anywhere in the system.

The new system is only an aid to the officers and won’t
be used as evidence in the court of law, in consonance with the Evidence Act.

Key words: Police, Investigation, Telangana

Andhra Pradesh

MukhyamantriYuvaNestam

Why
in News?

The Cabinet named the unemployment
allowance scheme for the 22-35 age group as ‘MukhyamantriYuvaNestam’ and decided to
throw it open for online registrations in the third or fourth week of August.

·Minister for IT and Panchayat Raj Nara Lokesh said
about 12 lakh unemployed youth were expected to
benefit from the scheme.

·The youth should have been enrolled
in the Smart Pulse Survey (‘PrajaSadhikara
Survey’) to be eligible and must furnish Aadhaar
numbers and other information for authentication (e-KYC).

·The allowance (₹1,000 per
month) would be deposited into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.

·Youth who took subsidies exceeding
₹50,000 towards self-employment projects earlier and those paying
provident fund were not eligible.

·The Cabinet decided to offer skill
development programmes to such unemployed youth through the same platform but
it would not be a pre-condition for drawing the above allowance.

·This database was planned to be made
available to the industries to enable them to recruit skilled youth.

Amaravati bonds

Why
in News?

The Cabinet has cleared the decks for
raising ₹2,000 crore through the Bombay Stock
Exchange’s electronic bidding platform at a coupon rate of 10.32% for funding
the construction of Capital city Amaravati.

The coupon rate is payable quarterly. The
basic issue size of the bond is ₹1,300 crore with a greenshoe option of
₹700 crore.

A standing committee was being formed to
oversee the issuance of the bonds, evaluate the coupon rate and take care of
fee and other arrangements.

Other decisions

·The Cabinet gave its nod for
creation of an agricultural market stabilisation fund under the purview of the
AP-Markfed with a likely corpus of ₹500 crore to help farmers in realising Minimum Support Price
(MSP).

·The stage has been set by the
Cabinet for the formation of a Physiotherapy Council to regulate the profession
of physiotherapists and improve the standards of physiotherapy courses.

·The Cabinet has further cleared
the payment of ₹3,000 as minimum wages to the ASHA workers and productivity-linked
incentives.

·The Cabinet approved some
amendments to the A.P. Electric Mobility Policy - 2018 which enables the
government to exempt electric vehicles purchased by it or private organisations
and individuals from registration charges and road tax till 2024 and give other
incentives.

·The Cabinet also gave the green
signal for A.P. Textile, Apparels and Garments Policy 2018-23 under which
various incentives will be given and supportive measures taken in order to
attract investments worth ₹15,000 crore.

Article
1 : Draft e- commercepolicy

Why
in news?

Draft Regulatory frame work for
e-commerce in country was submitted by a task force.

Now it is being studied by a 70 member
think tank headed by Honourable union minister

Suresh Prabhu.

Need
for such a policy:

1.E-commerce
in India is estimated to have market of $5billion.

2.In
a decade it is expected to swell to $200billion.

3.Reasons:
smart phones

a.Cheaper
data access.

b.Increase
in spending.

4.Traditional
sellers concern for level playing field against the e commerce giants with deep
pockets.